Brownies… because sometimes you just need some chocolate!

Fresh out of the oven!

Just before moving to my second apartment in San Francisco, I went through all of my cooking magazines (at the time I was getting Bon Appetit and Food & Wine each month) and cut out the recipes I wanted to save or make again. I took my clippings and a few handwritten recipes from home, and organized them in a big binder. This week, I flipped through my Recipe Binder for the first time in awhile. A few things, particularly in the “Desserts” section, caught my eye!

A Dessert page in my Recipe Binder

At the risk of sounding like a drama queen, I’ll admit that I once again needed some baking therapy. For that reason, this brownie recipe seemed like a good way to go! I believe it originally came from the Very Virginia Cookbook, but I copied this from Mom’s notes years ago.

The Ingredients

Brownies

Makes 24 brownies

1 cup Butter, melted

3/4 cup Cocoa Powder

2 cups Sugar

1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract

4 large Eggs

1 cup All-Purpose Flour

1 cup Chopped Nuts OR Chocolate Morsels, Optional

Preheat oven to 325F. Grease a 9in x 13in pan, and set aside.

Stir melted butter, cocoa, sugar, and vanilla together in a large bowl. Beat in eggs. Stir in flour until just combined. Add in nuts or morsels, if desired.

My favorite part of preparing brownie batter

Spread batter into the prepared pan, and bake 20-30 minutes, until the middle is thoroughly set with a crust on top, and brownies are pulling away from the sides of the pan. Allow to cool on a wire rack.

Yummy!

These brownies are extremely easy to make. They’re also very rich. They have more vanilla than most brownie recipes, which gives them a more intense flavor. One of these brownies with a cold glass of milk would be a perfect treat!

I unfortunately have no self control, so after a quality control test (i.e. I ate 3 brownies), I packed these bad boys up to take to my friend’s office. It was best to get them far away from me!